Mei Quong Tart
Encyclopedia
Mei Quong Tart was a leading nineteenth century Sydney
merchant from China. He was one of Sydney's most famous and well-loved personalities and made a significant impact on the social and political scene of Sydney at a time of strong anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia
. In Australia, he is usually referred to by his given name
, "Quong Tart," or by a shortened nickname, "Quong."
. He was also a community leader, well connected with the local political and social elites. An acting consular to the imperial Chinese government at the time, the Chinese Emperor made him an honorary Mandarin of the fifth degree in 1887, in acknowledgment of his services to the Overseas Chinese community and to European-Chinese relations in Australia
. In 1894, he was advanced to the fourth degree and was appointed Mandarin of the Blue Button, honoured by the Dragon Throne with the Peacock Feather.
An active philanthropist, he often provided dinners, gifts and entertainment at his own expense for recipients ranging from the Benevolent Society home at Liverpool, to the newsboys of Ashfield, Summer Hill, Croydon and Burwood. From 1885 to 1888, he provided a series of dinners for the inmates of destitute asylums.
He also had progressive ideas about Sydney social politics. His tea rooms were the site of the first meetings of Sydney's suffragettes, and he devised new and improved employment policies for staff, such as paid sick leave.
He was a spokesman for the Chinese community, often advocating for the rights of Chinese-Australians and working as an interpreter. He was one of the founders of the first Chinese merchants association in Sydney, titled the Lin Yik Tong.
He campaigned against the opium trade, and in 1883 went on an investigation to the Chinese camps in Southern New South Wales. The report revealed widespread opium addiction, and on 24 April 1884, Quong Tart presented a petition to the colonial secretary requesting the ban of opium imports. In June that year Quong Tart also tried to win support for a ban of opium in Melbourne
and Ballarat, Victoria
. In 1887, he presented a second petition to parliament, and produced a pamphlet titled A Plea for the Abolition of the Importation of Opium.
He was also part of the NSW Royal Commission on Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality and Charges of Bribery Against Members of the Police Force from 1891 to 1892.
, Guangdong
province, China
. His father, also named Quong Tart, was a fairly successful merchant dealing in ornamental wares. He immigrated to Australia in 1859 with his uncle, transporting a shipload of coolies to the goldfields around Araluen
and Braidwood
in regional New South Wales
. Once in Braidwood, Quong Tart lived at Bells Creek in the store of Scottish Thomas Forsyth
.
In the following years, he was taken in by the wealthy family of Robert Percy Simpson, whose wife Alice Simpson, née Want, was charmed by his Scottish accent. Under the Simpsons, Quong Tart learnt to behave as a proper English gentleman and was converted to Christianity.
At aged 21, Quong Tart built a cottage at Bell's Creek with a small fortune developed from investing in gold claims and was prominent in sporting, cultural and religious affairs. On 11 July 1871 he became a naturalised British subject, joined the Freemasons in 1885, and in 1877 he was appointed to the board of the Bell's Creek public school.
In 1881 he returned to Taishan
, China at the request of his family, and set up operations for a tea trade to Sydney. Once returning to Sydney, he established a chain of silk stores and tea shops. The tea shops were intended to provide customers with samples of tea, but became so successful that he turned his shops into tea rooms, the first tea rooms in Sydney.
On 30 August 1886 he married a young English school teacher, Margaret Scarlett. Her family, although friends with Tart's, did not approve of the union and her father refused to attend the wedding.
Quong Tart had two sons and four daughters, who, although Anglican himself, baptised in different denominations to avoid charges of prejudice. He also had a wife in China (a little known fact to many Australians) with whom he produced many decendents, several of whom still reside in his home village of Long Xin and in the U.S.
Quong Tart and his family lived in his mansion, 'Gallop House', in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield
, while his four daughters attended the nearby Presbyterian Ladies' College
at Croydon
, the first Asian students to attend the school.
He was well known as a uniquely Victorian character, being a Chinese Australian who adopted the dress and manners of an English gentleman, all while performing Scottish songs on his bagpipe. He is distinguished as the first Chinese person in Australia to be initiated into the Society of Freemasons.
Despite the virulent anti-Chinese agitation in Australia at the time, Quong Tart was "as well known as the Governor himself" and "quite as popular among all classes" in NSW (Daily Telegraph, 10 October 1897).
. There, thousands of Sydneysiders gathered to pay their last respects. Quong Tart was dressed in his ceremonial robes of a Mandarin of the Blue Button, under his masonic apron.
Many believe that his attack and consequential death was more than a burglary mishap. Letters from his Chinese friends indicate that many of them had suspicions about Quong Tart's death, believing that it could have been arranged by "the Western people" or by other jealous Chinese businessmen.
As a commemoration, in 1998 a statue was erected for him in Ashfield
. He was survived by his wife, two sons, and four daughters.
With construction of the Queen Victoria Market building being completed in 1898, Quong Tart saw it as an opportunity to expand his business and set up a tea room with additional cloak and smoke room.
Quong Tart’s Elite Hall in the Queen Victoria Market Building was formally opened by the Mayor of Sydney, Matthew Harris, in 1898. The tea rooms were on the ground floor near the centre of the markets, fronting George Street. A plush-carpeted staircase led to the function hall on the first floor. The Elite Hall had capacity for nearly 500 people and included a stage with an elaborately carved proscenium. At the other end was the Elite Dining Saloon, described as having ‘elegant appointments’.
Quong Tart's tea rooms were also located at 777 George St, in Moore Park
Zoo, and in the Haymarket theatre district.
During July and August 2004, an exhibition was held in the Queen Victoria Building
titled, "No Ordinary Man. Sydney's Quong Tart: citizen, merchant & philanthropist". Curated by Dr Nicola Teffer, it featured information and photographs documenting Quong Tart's comprehensive life in China and Australia and was coordinated by the Quong Tart Commemoration Committee. A 32 page illustrated catalogue was also made available.
The Powerhouse Museum
also held a 3 day international conference at the start of July, "Quong Tart and his time, 1850-1903" which featured a multimedia performance held at the University of Technology, called "Tales of a Tartan Mandarin - The Story of Quong Tart".
The QVB Tearoom and the Tea Centre on King St also arranged a special menu item of "quong tarts", a unique fruit tart, to celebrate their historical link with Mei Quong Tart.
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
merchant from China. He was one of Sydney's most famous and well-loved personalities and made a significant impact on the social and political scene of Sydney at a time of strong anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. In Australia, he is usually referred to by his given name
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
, "Quong Tart," or by a shortened nickname, "Quong."
Public life
A prominent businessman, he owned a network of tearooms in the Sydney Arcade, the Royal Arcade and King Street. His crowning success was the ‘Elite Hall’ in the Queen Victoria Market, now the Queen Victoria BuildingQueen Victoria Building
The Queen Victoria Building, or QVB, is a late nineteenth century building by the architect George McRae in the central business district of Sydney, Australia. The Romanesque Revival building is 30 metres wide by 190 metres long, and fills a city block, bounded by George, Market, York and Druitt...
. He was also a community leader, well connected with the local political and social elites. An acting consular to the imperial Chinese government at the time, the Chinese Emperor made him an honorary Mandarin of the fifth degree in 1887, in acknowledgment of his services to the Overseas Chinese community and to European-Chinese relations in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. In 1894, he was advanced to the fourth degree and was appointed Mandarin of the Blue Button, honoured by the Dragon Throne with the Peacock Feather.
An active philanthropist, he often provided dinners, gifts and entertainment at his own expense for recipients ranging from the Benevolent Society home at Liverpool, to the newsboys of Ashfield, Summer Hill, Croydon and Burwood. From 1885 to 1888, he provided a series of dinners for the inmates of destitute asylums.
He also had progressive ideas about Sydney social politics. His tea rooms were the site of the first meetings of Sydney's suffragettes, and he devised new and improved employment policies for staff, such as paid sick leave.
He was a spokesman for the Chinese community, often advocating for the rights of Chinese-Australians and working as an interpreter. He was one of the founders of the first Chinese merchants association in Sydney, titled the Lin Yik Tong.
He campaigned against the opium trade, and in 1883 went on an investigation to the Chinese camps in Southern New South Wales. The report revealed widespread opium addiction, and on 24 April 1884, Quong Tart presented a petition to the colonial secretary requesting the ban of opium imports. In June that year Quong Tart also tried to win support for a ban of opium in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and Ballarat, Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
. In 1887, he presented a second petition to parliament, and produced a pamphlet titled A Plea for the Abolition of the Importation of Opium.
He was also part of the NSW Royal Commission on Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality and Charges of Bribery Against Members of the Police Force from 1891 to 1892.
Early life
Mei Quong Tart was born in 1850 in the village of Shandi (山底), Duanfen (端芬鎮) in southern TaishanTaishan
Taishan is a coastal county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. The city is part of the Greater Taishan Region....
, Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
province, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. His father, also named Quong Tart, was a fairly successful merchant dealing in ornamental wares. He immigrated to Australia in 1859 with his uncle, transporting a shipload of coolies to the goldfields around Araluen
Araluen
Araluen may refer to:* Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia* Araluen, New South Wales, a small town near Braidwood, in south-eastern New South Wales, Australia...
and Braidwood
Braidwood
-Places:* Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia* Braidwood, South Lanarkshire, Scotland* Braidwood, Illinois, United States of America-People:* Thomas Braidwood , founder of a school for the deaf in Scotland...
in regional New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
. Once in Braidwood, Quong Tart lived at Bells Creek in the store of Scottish Thomas Forsyth
Thomas Forsyth
Thomas Forsyth may refer to:*Thomas Douglas Forsyth* Thomas Forsyth , American frontiersman, trader, and Indian agent* Thomas H. Forsyth , American soldier and Medal of Honor recipient...
.
In the following years, he was taken in by the wealthy family of Robert Percy Simpson, whose wife Alice Simpson, née Want, was charmed by his Scottish accent. Under the Simpsons, Quong Tart learnt to behave as a proper English gentleman and was converted to Christianity.
At aged 21, Quong Tart built a cottage at Bell's Creek with a small fortune developed from investing in gold claims and was prominent in sporting, cultural and religious affairs. On 11 July 1871 he became a naturalised British subject, joined the Freemasons in 1885, and in 1877 he was appointed to the board of the Bell's Creek public school.
In 1881 he returned to Taishan
Taishan
Taishan is a coastal county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. The city is part of the Greater Taishan Region....
, China at the request of his family, and set up operations for a tea trade to Sydney. Once returning to Sydney, he established a chain of silk stores and tea shops. The tea shops were intended to provide customers with samples of tea, but became so successful that he turned his shops into tea rooms, the first tea rooms in Sydney.
On 30 August 1886 he married a young English school teacher, Margaret Scarlett. Her family, although friends with Tart's, did not approve of the union and her father refused to attend the wedding.
Personal life
Quong Tart and his family lived in his mansion, 'Gallop House', in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield
Ashfield, New South Wales
Ashfield is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Ashfield is about 9 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Ashfield.The official name for the...
, while his four daughters attended the nearby Presbyterian Ladies' College
Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney
The Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for girls in Croydon, an inner-western suburb of Sydney, Australia...
at Croydon
Croydon, New South Wales
Croydon is an affluent suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Croydon is located 11 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district. Croydon is split between the two local government areas of Burwood Council and the Municipality of Ashfield.The...
, the first Asian students to attend the school.
He was well known as a uniquely Victorian character, being a Chinese Australian who adopted the dress and manners of an English gentleman, all while performing Scottish songs on his bagpipe. He is distinguished as the first Chinese person in Australia to be initiated into the Society of Freemasons.
Despite the virulent anti-Chinese agitation in Australia at the time, Quong Tart was "as well known as the Governor himself" and "quite as popular among all classes" in NSW (Daily Telegraph, 10 October 1897).
Death
On 19 August 1902, Quong Tart was brutally bashed with an iron bar and robbed of a few pounds at his office in the QVB, a crime that shocked Sydney. The attacker Frederick Duggan, described as a "dim-witted thug", was jailed for 12 years, a light sentence in which police believed was a simple robbery gone wrong. After the attack he never fully recovered, and died from pleurisy at his Ashfield home 11 months later, in July 1903, aged 53. His funeral, held on July 23, 1903 featured the "who's who" of Sydney, and was widely covered in the newspapers. 200 Chinese men escorted the coffin from his Ashfield mansion to a train which transported the funeral party to Rookwood CemeteryRookwood Cemetery
Rookwood Cemetery is the largest multicultural necropolis in the Southern Hemisphere, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
. There, thousands of Sydneysiders gathered to pay their last respects. Quong Tart was dressed in his ceremonial robes of a Mandarin of the Blue Button, under his masonic apron.
Many believe that his attack and consequential death was more than a burglary mishap. Letters from his Chinese friends indicate that many of them had suspicions about Quong Tart's death, believing that it could have been arranged by "the Western people" or by other jealous Chinese businessmen.
As a commemoration, in 1998 a statue was erected for him in Ashfield
Ashfield, New South Wales
Ashfield is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Ashfield is about 9 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Ashfield.The official name for the...
. He was survived by his wife, two sons, and four daughters.
Tea rooms
In December 1889, Quong Tart opened the Loong Shan Tea Giyse at 137 King Street, Sydney. It was his grandest Tea room, with marble fountains and ponds with golden carp. The tea and grill rooms occupied the ground floor, while on the first floor there was a reading room. It soon became one of Sydney’s most important meeting places. The site is now part of the Glasshouse shopping complex, home to the Tea Centre.With construction of the Queen Victoria Market building being completed in 1898, Quong Tart saw it as an opportunity to expand his business and set up a tea room with additional cloak and smoke room.
Quong Tart’s Elite Hall in the Queen Victoria Market Building was formally opened by the Mayor of Sydney, Matthew Harris, in 1898. The tea rooms were on the ground floor near the centre of the markets, fronting George Street. A plush-carpeted staircase led to the function hall on the first floor. The Elite Hall had capacity for nearly 500 people and included a stage with an elaborately carved proscenium. At the other end was the Elite Dining Saloon, described as having ‘elegant appointments’.
Quong Tart's tea rooms were also located at 777 George St, in Moore Park
Moore Park, New South Wales
Moore Park is a large area of parkland in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is part of Centennial Parklands, a collective of three parks being Moore Park, Centennial Park and Queens Park. Centennial Parklands is administered by the Centennial Park &...
Zoo, and in the Haymarket theatre district.
Centenary celebrations
To mark the centenary since Quong Tart's passing, a 12-month celebration was held in venues throughout Sydney.During July and August 2004, an exhibition was held in the Queen Victoria Building
Queen Victoria Building
The Queen Victoria Building, or QVB, is a late nineteenth century building by the architect George McRae in the central business district of Sydney, Australia. The Romanesque Revival building is 30 metres wide by 190 metres long, and fills a city block, bounded by George, Market, York and Druitt...
titled, "No Ordinary Man. Sydney's Quong Tart: citizen, merchant & philanthropist". Curated by Dr Nicola Teffer, it featured information and photographs documenting Quong Tart's comprehensive life in China and Australia and was coordinated by the Quong Tart Commemoration Committee. A 32 page illustrated catalogue was also made available.
The Powerhouse Museum
Powerhouse Museum
The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, the other being the historic Sydney Observatory...
also held a 3 day international conference at the start of July, "Quong Tart and his time, 1850-1903" which featured a multimedia performance held at the University of Technology, called "Tales of a Tartan Mandarin - The Story of Quong Tart".
The QVB Tearoom and the Tea Centre on King St also arranged a special menu item of "quong tarts", a unique fruit tart, to celebrate their historical link with Mei Quong Tart.
Descendants
- Josh Quong TartJosh Quong TartJosh Quong Tart is an Australian actor who has performed in several television, commercial and film roles.-Biography:...
, Australian actor (Great-grandson) - Harrison Gordon Rorke, Australian Rugby Union Player (Great-Great-grandson)
Further reading
- Australian Mandarin: The Life and Times of Quong Tart, by Robert Travers; Kangaroo Press 1981